March trip to Milan and Lakes District in Italy

When you visit Europe, you have to be ready to see BIG cathedrals and castles and villas and public squares. This is the Dom in Milan. This is not our photo. When we were here, it was a very gray day and half of the cathedral was covered with scaffolding for cleaning and repairs. So, we used a postcard instead!

 

This is the local castle / fort. It is in the middle of town. It was probably never a very good fort since it is made of brick and brick doesn't stand up very well to artillery. It has some museums we didn't see and the grounds in the back have an unexpectedly nice aquarium.

 

 These moray eels are the size of a weightlifters forearm and would scare us to death if we saw them while we were in the water! The aquarium is cute and free. Actually a very nice place to go on a rainy day.

 

If you visit Milan, you have to see some of da Vinci's stuff. This comes from a set of replicas of models made by da Vinci that are on display in the museum. This is a picture of a model of something he dreamed up to demonstrate that a wing could actually support weight. I guess watching a bird fly by was just too low-tech for his genius!

 

This is the view looking down on Lake Como from the top of the funicular railway. As you can tell by looking across the lake/valley into Switzerland, we were above the snow line. It was March and still pretty wintery looking. Notice the trees are bare.

 

Down on the lake, you can ride around on the ferry boats and see the villas. All the villas were empty as far as we could see. They were all built for rich Italians to escape the heat of summer. No one lives here in the winter!

 

The Italian towns seem to crawl up the side of the hills from the edge of the lakes. The houses are also quite crowded together. We were glad we missed the summer season. Everyone we talked to complained about the incredible mobs of tourists. They said it was so bad you could barely walk around.

 

Even the churches are along the edge of the water.

 

This was the neatest looking boat, but we didn't have the time to go flying over the water. We were actually putting around on a tourist boat when this thing went by. The locals all take the hydro if they can because it is so much faster.

 

We actually ran into friends from when we worked in Saudi Arabia in Italy. They were doing the same thing we were; getting away for March break! They recommended we go up and see the ski area! The view was quite spectacular.

 

This is the view looking down from the ski resort area at one of the lakes. It is truly a beautiful region.

 

This is almost the entire island! It is in one of the lakes and, as you can see, completely covered with villas. The only way out is by boat and there is no ferry. This means there are no cars on the island.

 

This was either completely bizarre or a stroke of genius. It might take a moment ...  What you are looking at is a floating swimming pool in a lake.

 

The alley ways leading up between some of the buildings were quite picturesque. Jim took several photos of them before Alonda pointed out that they actually sell postcards of these things.

 

Considering how cold it was, we were totally impressed at the 100+ bicyclists we saw training around the lakes. They were really moving!

 

 

We were up on one of the hills and actually got caught in a snow storm. It didn't last, but it was pretty intense for March! This is the little diesel car we rented. The first time the engine quit at a stop light, Jim just about freaked out! The car saves gas by turning itself off if you stop for very long. When you push in the clutch and put it in gear, the engine starts up again. Scary until you get used to it! We also rented a GPS to go with the car. The GPS cost more than the car rental and was worth every penny. You cannot even begin to imagine how lost you can get in Italy!

 

We found a local ceramic museum. There used to be a fairly large ceramic manufacturing plant in the area. The colors were absolutely stunning.

 

 

 

Italy is all about the food and espresso!

 

The gelato was Alonda's choice!

 

A lot of the transport around the lake is by ferry boat. The boats were a lot smaller, but they still looked enough like Seattle to be fun.

 

We are looking forward to being back home for the summer.

Christmas 2012

This Christmas we went to Ireland and Scotland. Some colleagues / friends live in Scotland and everyone has to visit Ireland at least once!

  Dublin was dressed up for the season. The shopping centers and the streets were filled with people buying just about everything.

We found the local cinema and saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We really miss seeing movies.

  We asked the local tourist lady to recommend a close place for a day trip and she sent us to Malahide Castle. It wasn't really a castle, more of a chateau with very extensive grounds. It was one of those huge family estates that get to be waaaay too expensive to maintain. This family sold it off in the 1970's and it has just been renovated. The old stables have been turned into the best gift shop we have ever seen. It has a full-blown restaurant, large deli and very large gift area.

  We took a train over to Cork on the south side of the island. Ireland is surprisingly dull when seen from a train. No large hills or valleys and the horizon is neither very far away nor very close. It is green and pretty. Jim thinks this is one of the reasons for the large body of Irish literature and music: they look more inwards than outwards to the scenery.

  This church is typical of the large buildings. They use the local granite for building material.

We love finding off-beat museums and a butter museum certainly qualifies! We never saw it mentioned on the internet and it was closed when we came by. With advance notice, they might have opened it up just for us?

Cork was a small, clean, interesting-looking city. Too bad we only had a day trip.

If you go to Ireland, you have to go to a pub. We selected these two because they look the way we think a pub is supposed to look. The food was always good in the pubs we entered. Since it was Christmas, none of the local musicians were playing. Ireland completely shuts down for Christmas. Even the trains and busses stop running for a couple of days.

We had some pretty gray days. It never snowed and didn't get horribly cold, either. We had been told that the dead of winter was sort of the "secret season". It isn't much warmer in the summer! 

This churchyard is in Howth (near Dublin). Even though the church is in ruins (notice the missing roof?), the graveyard is still being used. This is about all the sunshine you will find in the winter this far north.

This is looking down into the harbor of Howth. It is a working fishing port and very popular with the tourists. Since this is about as "low" as low-season gets, we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

We found a radio museum on top of Howth. Jim had asked, almost at random, about a tower on top of the town. We went by to see the tower and found the museum. Since no one else was around, we had a personally guided tour.

The tower is a "Martello Tower". The design was copied by the British and used all over the world. It originally had a single cannon on the roof and was designed to keep the French from invading England by way of Ireland. There are a surprising number of these things scattered around the world.

If you mess up, you go to jail (or gaol if you prefer that spelling)! The town of Howth is quite proud of its fully restored jail. They use it for a tourist attraction and Santa was there, too.

This is the front of the Gaol. Many of the prisoners were actually shipped off to Australia after being put in jail for stealing food during the Potato Famine. Maybe not so much a punishment as a chance to get something to eat ...

Our friends in Scotland live in a town called Tane. This is the noonday sun.

This is the only distillery we visited. Ireland and Scotland both claim their distilled spirits are better than anyone elses. We didn't actually test that!

This is the 3 pm sunset in northern Scotland. The sun didn't get much higher during the entire day.
All in all, we had a very relaxing, pleasant vacation for Christmas and New Years.

 

 

Holland Bike'n'Barge

We started our Bike'n'Barge trip in Amsterdam (of course!). The canals are always fun to see. On our walking tour, we found out there is a boat in the city that does nothing but go around and pick up the hundreds of bikes that get (accidentally or on purpose) dropped in the canals every year. The guide says the most dangerous thing you can do in Amsterdam is to jump in a canal. You will probably break a leg on a submerged bike.

We like to find unusual museums to visit. This one in Amsterdam is the "Our Lady in the Attic" museum. During the time of Catholic persecution, a man bought up three houses, linked their attics together and put in a 150 seat Catholic church. They were a little vague on how 150 people walked in and out of this house on Sunday and no one seemed to notice!

Here is Alonda and her two sisters with our "barge". It is actually a sort of river cruiser and never carried coal or other cargo in its life.

The bikes are stored on the roof of the boat and we took them up and down the ramp. 

This is a side-by-side tandem bike with an electric booster motor. You didn't really have to pedal unless you wanted to.

We rode the traditional two-wheeled, 7-speed, coaster brake clunker bicycles. Everyone in Holland owns a bike and rides it. This picture was taken during one of our lunch stops and Jim had to fix the only flat tire we had during the entire trip.

This is why everyone wants to ride in Holland. The scenery is lovely, the flowers are in bloom, the canals are beautiful and you can always look at a drawbridge.

Once you get away from the towns, the scenery just keeps getting nicer. The nation-wide bicycle highway network has excellent signs and is extremely nice to ride on. Dutch law says any car that hits a bicycle is automatically at fault. You can be quite brave in traffic with that sort of protection!

We visited the Royal Delft factory (in Delft, of course!). There are several Delft pottery factories and they all claim to be the "official" one. This one claims to be the only "royal" one. The fine pottery technology was all stolen from the Chinese! This was our worst day for weather. We were absolutely soaked to the skin from the downpour riding to the factory from the town square. The weather statistics for summer in Holland said it wouldn't rain!

This is the "Waage" or scale house in the main square at Gouda. All goods coming and going were officially weighed so taxes could be levied. It also meant that if you bought Dutch products, you got full weight of whatever you bought. It was good for business and good for taxes! We also bought a bunch of real, live Gouda cheese in Gouda.

One of the days, we didn't trust the weather (remember Delft?) and rode the boat to the next stop. The weather looked much better so we rode the route in reverse to go visit the "castle". It certainly looked the part!

This is first stop at the "Zaanse Schans" open air museum. You play the slot machine if you want a free map of the museum. We won, of course! Our guide on the boat had warned us about this place. Not about the museum; just about the bus-loads of Chinese tourists. He wasn't kidding! They were everywhere!

Everyone thinks of wooden shoes when they think of Holland. Here is photo shoe.

This shoe was so popular with the Chinese tourists, you had to stand in line!

Alonda's feet aren't really this big! In the workshop, they had hundreds and hundreds of traditional and non-traditional wooden shoes. You would not believe some of the styles!

You can't visit Holland without seeing the windmills. Here they are.

They actually work. They don't do a lot of water pumping any more, but any windmill that is still standing is still functional.

After our Bike'n'Barge trip, we went down to Brussels in Belgium for a couple of days. We didn't want to go back to Karachi too soon! This is the Atomium. It was built for the Expo '58, the Brussels World's Fair. This was the first world's fair after WW II. The shape is that of an iron crystal and is over 100 meters tall.

From the top looking down, you can see all of "Mini-Europe". From this height, you may not realize how much of Europe is down there!

This is the town square in the middle of Brussels. Every year (end of August) they decorate the square with piles of cut flowers. It is absolutely stunning! We only got to see this miniature version!

This video shows what the real square really looked like!

Each country designed their own exhibit and Holland, of course, put in some windmills.

Alonda's sister found Big Ben. The real one is a lot harder to stand next to.

This is the Atomium (life-sized) hanging over the Eiffel Tower (miniature) and the Arch d'Triomphe (miniature).

We took pictures of the real Tower of Pisa. You might want to compare our pictures from our trip to Tuscany. Click the link and scroll down if you want.  http://anjdroege.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

We went to the Chocolate Museum in Brussels and learned how to make hand-filled Belgium chocolates. You can also learn how to make a chocolate Mickey Mouse. Alonda got a senior discount. Jim couldn't get a discount for senior, teacher, Esperantist, ex-Army, living in Pakistan or anything else. The girl did, however, give him some sympathy chocolates.

We went to the Comics Museum. Brussels is, oddly enough, the comic book capital of the world. Yes, Alonda is standing next to a giant Smurf.

 Jim is standing next to one of the scenes from the TinTin books by Herge. Herge was, of course, from Brussels.

No picture, but we are back at work in Karachi!